Lokpal draft bill to be ready by June 30: Sibal

A meeting of the joint drafting committee on the anti-corruption Lokpal Bill held in New Delhi on Monday decided to speed up consultations to keep the deadline of June 30, human resource development (HRD) minister Kapil Sibal said.

Sibal told reporters after the three-hour meeting that the draft Lokpal Bill would be ready for introduction in the monsoon session of parliament as announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He said there was agreement on several basic subjects of the Bill during the discussions.

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee presided over the meeting.

Shanti Bhushan, co-chairman of the committee representing civil society, had recently expressed his concern about the slow progress in the work of the joint drafting committee for the bill, aimed at giving more powers to the ombudsman to tackle corruption in public life.

The 10-member committee comprises five ministers and five representatives of the civil society.